


Of Safes and Uncomfortable Prolonged Contact with Candlestick Holders

by angelgazing



Category: Ocean's Eleven (2001)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-24
Updated: 2010-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-07 12:53:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelgazing/pseuds/angelgazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny is with Tess now, which means he shouldn't be with Rusty here, but then, he shouldn't have broken into that safe, either, and he did it anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Safes and Uncomfortable Prolonged Contact with Candlestick Holders

"You know," Rusty says, and takes a bite out of an apple that Danny feels it best to not start speculating on the origins of. "You've gotten us into a lot of messes over the years, Daniel, a lot of—"

"In my defense, most of those were on purpose."

"A _lot_ of messes," Rusty continues, over him, like he's past the point of listening to Danny at all. Again. The last time took him three days to get over, and. Well. "But this, I mean, if getting into shit were an Olympic sport, then it wouldn't even be a contest."

Danny twists, carefully, and hits his head on the heavy wooden frame of a painting. "I went to prison for you," he says, as stars start dancing in front of his eyes, because when Rusty gets like this he won't listen to sense. Defense is his only option.

Except Rusty didn't seem to get the internal memo that, usually, he's so excellent at procuring from Danny whether Danny likes it or not. He crosses his legs at the ankle and kicks Danny in the shin in the process. "You went to prison because you were trying to prove a point to Tess." He takes another bite and the apple crunches loudly. "How _is_ your wife anyway?"

"You're irrational," Danny says, accusingly. He shifts and gets a solid brass candlestick holder jabbing painfully into his back. "I can't talk to you when you're irrational."

"We're locked in a safe," Rusty tells him, and uses the voice that he uses when he wants to seem rational, just to drive Danny a little bit crazier. "What else are you going to do? Plot our grand escape into the _Christmas party_? Plan our next big adventure? Get to know that candlestick holder a little better?"

"Do you realize that that last one there was spoken in a sort of threatening tone?" And mostly Danny's just asking because he didn't know Rusty had a tone that was even vaguely threatening. He's really too pretty to pull it off. Mostly.

Rusty's nostrils do this bull-preparing-to-charge flaring thing, and Danny immediately regrets not carrying sweets in the inside pocket of his jacket like he used to. Just for situations like these. Obviously he's out of practice. "You know," Danny says, "you kind of looked like Tess just then when you did that."

"Your mouth has gotten bigger as your hair has gotten thinner."

Danny, horrified by what is clearly Rusty's low blood sugar induced temperament, puts a hand to his hair. "My hair is _not_ getting thinner!" he says, in a way that, possibly, if you were someone with a bias against him and a mental or physical disorder that impaired the hearing, could have been misinterpreted as a shriek. And it's absolutely true that his hair isn't getting thinner, but he feels the need to run his fingers through it just to be sure.

"Grayer," Rusty says, and looks like he's ready to laugh now, and really, they're trapped inside a tiny, tiny safe, and every time Danny moves he knocks into Rusty or some not-so-priceless artifact, so Danny's having a hard time figuring out what's so funny. Rusty moves his arms to make a point and Danny nearly loses an eye. "Of course, I always was the pretty one."

"You're mean when you haven't eaten in twenty minutes," Danny says, and ignores the apple core that Rusty tosses into a brass urn. Thankfully the urn is empty, they really don't need any more bad karma. It lands with a clatter not unlike that of a gong. And, actually, there's a gong in here too. Right above Rusty's head. Danny hopes it falls. "That must be why we keep you so well stocked in snack foods. It's funny how my time away in prison made me forget things."

"You mean your time away with your wife, pretending that you were retired."

"Funny you should mention that." Danny moves to the left, to try and dislodge the candlestick holder before it decides to take up permanent residence. He ends up with the butt of a silver serving knife at his neck and decides to stop moving left. You'd think that someone with a safe like this would've packed this away a little more carefully. "Should you happen to talk to Tess—"

"We're on a fishing trip?" Rusty asks, and snorts. He plants his palm on Danny's shoulder, wrist bent at a funny angle, and starts rolling up his shirt sleeve.

"I didn't really think she'd buy that," Danny tells him, sadly. "So I settled for _poker game in Belize._"

Rusty switches hands, rolls up his other sleeve, and then crosses his arms. It pulls his tie tight across his chest, and it's so bright in the dim light that Danny gets distracted. "And you think she bought that?"

"Not in the slightest." Danny tilts his head, and hits his temple on something he can't readily identify. "Oddly enough, I think she's under the impression that we're sleeping together."

"Instead of stealing things."

Danny shrugs. "The troubling thing is how she's more okay with it that way." He hits his shoulder on another, equally gaudy, picture frame. "Whatever happened to people filling their safes with thousand dollar bills?" he asks and rubs at his newest injury pathetically. He knocks Rusty in the chin with his elbow.

"That does seem to be a lost art," Rusty says, and is back to his usual calm amusement, at any rate. "Have you considered that maybe you aren't in the best relationship if you're trying to convince your wife that you're having an affair so she won't catch on to your petty thieving?"

"It's crossed my mind, yes." Then, out of what is surely temporary insanity brought on by an acute case of claustrophobia, he says, "Of course, we could always just make it true."

"Where's the fun in that?" Rusty asks, smirking.

Danny shrugs. "We'll make our own fun."


End file.
